In July 2020, the Government of Zimbabwe was forced to agree to a 3,500,000,000 USD "compensation" to white settlers for lands redistributed to Black peasants after independence from British colonial rule.

For years, those working to force Zimbabwe to pay dearly for its land reform have gained ground — not only its 4,000 former white settlers, but also the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and, above all, the United States.

Decades of economic sanctions imposed by these countries — all with their own histories of colonialism — have put Zimbabwe on “the brink of man-made starvation”, ranking among the four highest food-insecure nations.

Since 2001, for example, the US has sanctions to cripple Zimbabwe's economy while blocking the country's access to international loans and assistance for over two decades. Rather than respect Zimbabwean sovereignty, the US instead insists on its own conditions: Either Zimbabwe reverses its historic land reform, or the US will continue to impose collective punishment on its people.

Forced into isolation, the Zimbabwean government is now complying with US demands in the hope that it will break the blockade.

Under these new conditions, instead of supporting over a million struggling small farmers in a nation on the brink of famine, 3.5 billion dollars will now be extracted as reverse reparations to pay off 4,000 white farmers, the beneficiaries of a white supremacist regime for nearly a century.

But Zimbabwe's popular movements refuse to bend the knee to imperial powers and their demands of reverse reparations for sanctions relief. Zimbabweans' land and liberation have been won by struggle, not an imperialist shakedown. The Progressive International supports our member organisations the Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF) and the Zimbabwe Land Rights Movement (ZPLRM) in their mobilisation against this giveaway. Show your support here.

You can read more about the reverse reparations in an article published by Al Jazeera English by ZIMSOFF’s Elizabeth Mpofu, scholar Raj Patel and PI co-general coordinator Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla. And please watch and share our explainer video.

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Seuswa / Akin to Grass (2016) draws on archival images of the Herero people, traditional pastoralists residing in Namibia, Botswana and Angola. The original photograph depicted Hereros living under oppression through the lens of colonisers. In his artwork, Chazunguza reimagined the Herero as a growing population that is as resilient as grass. By removing their exposed ribs due to famine and multiplying them, he depicts them as timeless beings, explaining the name "Seuswa," which means "like grass," because “they will always be there.